


Drowning

by oxymoronassoc



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 13:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11232051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoronassoc/pseuds/oxymoronassoc
Summary: Spoilers through "Resurrection Pt II".After the funeral.Originally written 1.22.06





	Drowning

They return from the funeral in silence, undress in silence, hang their coats in silence, go about their business with a semblance of normality in silence. But as she glances over at his rack where he lays there looking so dead, Kara cannot remain silent any more. She closes her locker quietly before pulling over a chair to sit next to his bunk.

"Lee! Lee, you okay? Are you okay?" she asks, concerned when he doesn't answer promptly, eyes staring off into space, even more so when he starts as if he is lost in his mind.

"No, not really," he mumbles, closing his eyes, voice rough. He sighs and to Kara it sounds pained, as if he's about to tell her something truly terrible. "Hey, um, I broke my word to you," he finally says and she stares at him, mildly confused.

"What're you talking about?" she asks him, giving him a look that says he's rather ridiculous in making such a statement. 

"I let you down," Lee says, before she can tell him this. "I wasn't there when you needed me." He sounds pained to say this, to admit he couldn't save her, couldn't be there, but Kara doesn't understand the guilt in his tone too. She knows what happened; it wasn't his fault. Sometimes fate dealt you a bad hand.

"Look," she says, shaking her head at how ludicrous this seems, wondering if maybe this is just a bad reaction, shock settling in now that they finally have a chance to breathe. "A close call like that," she pauses to find the words, "that'd mess with anybody's head, all right?" Her eyes are concerned and she wonders if he's even listening to what she is saying not just the words. She tries to make light of it, forcing a slight smile. "Turns out I didn't need you anyway, so..." She gives a short laugh, the recentness of the situation still enough to flutter her nerves. 

He doesn't look reassured; if anything he looks worse. Kara presses her lips together, staring at him. "Let's just be glad that we both came back alive, all right?" And what she really means is "I'm glad you're alive". Kara pushes away thinking about him dying, how she would feel; he isn't dying. He's here, alive.

But then he drops the bomb.

"That's just it, Kara. I didn't want to make it back alive."

She stares at him for a moment, eyes darting across his face as if there is a message in his bones, in his skin that she's missed. She searches the familiar planes, his high cheekbone, the hollows of his cheeks, the strong bone of his jaw, trying to find the missing puzzle piece; the piece that will give her understanding, give him comfort. Her eyes meet his and she's afraid of their hollowness, of the deepness behind them. There is no fire to light the intense blue, no glint of mischief or amusement. There is only a fathomless, icy depth. Kara is drowning in his eyes and it's a cold, heavy, hopeless death.

"Surely," she whispers, voice cracking on the word before she stops herself, answers her own unasked question. He means every word of it. His eyes tell her so. 

Kara swallows over the lump in her throat, shifts in her chair. "Lee," she says, his name a question. She doesn't know what to do. One part of her wants to be angry, to rage at him for behaving in such a manner; the other wants to soothe away his hurts, bolster him up like one of her frightened nuggets who botched his first landing and becomes afraid of the sky. 

He isn't afraid though and Kara doesn't know what to do. 

"Lee," she says again, placing her hand over his where it rests palm-down on his chest. She turns it over, stroking his palm with the pad of her thumb before lacing her fingers through his, giving his hand a squeeze. He doesn't squeeze back, but his eyes move to meet hers again and she feels helpless and small and weak at the questions they ask, at the answers she doesn't know. Kara hates that feeling and it makes her want to _do_ something for frack's sake.

"I..." She wants to say something, but she doesn't have the words. Her mouth twists in a brief, humourless smile for those who would believe she had a comeback for every situation. 

"It's okay," he finally says, turning his head to look at the wall and loosening his fingers from her grip. "I let you down," he says again. "You don't have to forgive me."

And then Kara knows it's something else that is killing him inside, that somewhere in his thick fracking skull he feels he's betrayed himself. 

"Frack, Lee, there's nothing to forgive," she tells him, but his eyes still don't believe it and she can feel him slipping away from her to hide in himself, drowning in his mind. 

Kara has never been one for talking about feelings and she doesn't know where to start, doesn't want to start. She just wants to fix it, to use her hands and replace whatever piston in his head is misfiring, to ease out the hurt and the pain and the guilt and his foolish sense of personal betrayal. 

"Let me help. Please." She doesn't make it a question and as he stares at her, perplexed, she moves to sit next to him where he lays in his rack. She traces the fingers of her right hand along his jaw, feeling the roughness of his skin, the strength of the bone. "Please," she whispers, staring into his eyes, trying to make him understand. She leans down, puts her head on his chest, wraps her arms around him as best she can.

"I'm your friend," she says, almost angrily, into his chest, wishing she wasn't close to tears because frack it Kara Thrace does not cry. "I'm here for you." 

His arms come up around her, returning the embrace, and Kara lets out the breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Thank you," he murmurs, voice rumbling in his chest beneath her ear. She shushes him softly, closing her eyes. 

They lay together, holding each other close, and she listens to the steady beat of his heart, his rhythmic breathing that she matches her own to. Enveloped in the warmth of his body, Kara doesn't feel like she's drowning any more and she prays he's no longer drowning too. She hopes this is enough.


End file.
